[freewilly1040]

Do we know how much Apple and Microsoft are actually putting in? I can't find anything about it.

To put numbers on "enormous piles of cash", Apple books $20 billion in profits a quarter [1] and $245 billion cash on hand [2].

My guess is that if they are looking for risky plays, there just aren't a lot of options for the amount of cash they have.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-softbank-group-vision-fun... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/apple-now-has-tk-cash-on-han...

[adventured]

Apple is printing massive profits, however they're not quite $20 billion per quarter massive.

Their last quarter was $10b in net income, and $11.5b in operating income. The last four quarters were $55b in net income, $64b in operating income.

Apple's current cash plan is to draw it down to net zero, according to Cook, through returning cash to shareholders. I would expect them to continue to be extremely conservative on investments and acquisitions as per their historical norm. Their net cash is down to about $100 billion now, and total cash was $210b as of the third quarter results (likely under $200b now).

[notfromhere]

Would be nice if they could throw some change at a not-terrible keyboard design.